Now KXAN reports Texas spends millions of dollars replacing bridgesthat have little traffic, and it would be cheaper to repair them.

The money comes from $230 million allocated from the federal Highway Bridge Program. TxDOT directs $170 million to bridges it owns and maintains and $60 million to “off-system” bridges such as Boos Lane Crossing, which counties and municipalities own and maintain, KXAN reported.

Of these local, low-traveled bridges, TxDOT has about 440 bridges with a daily traffic count of fewer than 100 cars that will be replaced in the next five years at a cost of more than $150 million. These bridges are part of the 1,052 statewide that will be repaired or replaced the next five years costing $1.35 billion, according to KXAN. The projects are prioritized based on bridge structure, serviceability and obsolescence, and how essential each bridge is to public use, although this last factor accounts for just 15 percent of the grade, KXAN reports.

There’s added pressure on county and municipal officials. Residents travel across these bridges with low traffic counts, and if local officials don’t take the federal money to replace the bridge in question, TxDOT will direct it elsewhere. TxDOT officials told Gillespie County leaders the county would bear the full financial burden to repair the Boos Lane Crossing bridge, and the other option is to close it, which also isn’t palatable.

But don’t tell that to Philip Taetz, a retired Texas A&M civil engineering professor who lives near Boos Lane Crossing and told KXAN replacing the bridge was “waste in the worst possible form.”

***Contact Curt Olson at curt@texaswatchdog.org or 512-557-3800. Follow him on Twitter@olson_curt.